“Now you’re just gonna see a fluent, reacting, great athlete out there instead of one that’s thinking. When he’s just reacting, I mean, he can’t be stopped. He’s so smooth out of his cuts, his definition on his cuts . . . he plays at a different level of speed than anybody else does on the field. You saw a little bit of that with his punt-return ability last year. Now we want to see some of that at the receiver position.”

Vinny Testaverde drops back to gush.

“He’s light years ahead of where he was even last year, at the end of the year. We all know how fast he is, but he’s just running so smooth right now, coming out of breaks nice . . . he’s gonna be a tremendous player for us this year. I feel like he’s gonna have a big year. And I know he’s ready to have a big year, too. He wants it as much as anybody wants it for him.”

The Jet quarterbacks are throwing all this praise to Santana Moss.

Three years into a professional career marred by injuries and burdened by high expectations, Moss, the team’s No. 1 draft choice in 2000, appears primed to be the player he was at Miami (Fla.). He is ready to be Mr. Excitement.

“He has that swagger to him,” Herm Edwards said.

He showed it through the three-day minicamp that ended yesterday. His confidence is soaring and his chemistry with Pennington is growing by leaps and bounds, and just in time now that Laveranues Coles is a Redskin.

“I feel that we can do some big things,” Moss said yesterday. “I looked at this season regardless of the situation that happened with Laveranues, I was still thinking that, ‘Hey, it’s my time to get better at some things,’ just to come out here and be another guy that they have to look for really.

“I wanted to be a threat regardless of who was here. I didn’t care who was here. I thought that us three together were gonna tear some things up this year, regardless. But Laveranues moved on, I’m happy for him, I’m proud of him, ’cause I know where he came from, and I just want to keep it going.”

The Jets need Moss to keep it going opposite Curtis Conway and Wayne Chrebet. They need Moss to keep it going to take the heat off Curtis Martin.

“I know what to expect out of certain things,” Moss said. “I know what I have to get accomplished. So instead of thinking about it, I just go do it now.”

He has only 32 NFL catches, and that bothers him.

“I always said to myself, ‘I never want to be a guy that’s just out there,’ and that’s how I felt when I first came back [from knee surgery] my first year, just out there,” Moss said. “I don’t like that. And knowing that Laveranues is gone and knowing what we have in front of us, I can accept that. Somebody has to step up. I accept that.”